Contributed by: Dante3000Rich(others by this writer | submit your own)Published on March 29th 2011I've never been one to indulge in "guilty pleasures." I have always felt that if you like something, embrace it. If that object of your enjoyment may make you the subject of ridicule, accept that. More so, if the object of your enjoyment is objectively bad, acknowledge it. By accepting the realities.

I've never been one to indulge in "guilty pleasures." I have always felt that if you like something, embrace it. If that object of your enjoyment may make you the subject of ridicule, accept that. More so, if the object of your enjoyment is objectively bad, acknowledge it. By accepting the realities and the faults of your no-longer guilty pleasure, you can truly free yourself to fully enjoy belting out Kelly Clarkson's classic "Since U Been Gone" in a crowded bar with no sense of shame. It's along these lines that I firmly place the Gods of Macho and their self-titled full-length–somewhere between your favorite guilty pleasure comedic band and your favorite guilty pleasure classic rock band.

The Gods of Macho come poised pretty much like you'd expect: denim-clad, mustachioed badasses, with a penchant for all things testosterone. They start off the rockin' with the track "Macho", which sets the tone by listing a series of all things ass-kicking, including "Burt Reynolds, Jerry Reed...Randy Savage, beef jerky." While the Gods maintain this sort of Thin Lizzy-meets-hormone injections direction through songs like "Sneaky" and "Low Class Lover", they add variety with songs like "Losers" and "Gobledy Gook". These tracks actually sound more like punk rock underdog anthems than most of the Gods' offerings, but either way they're so catchy and fun that they offer a great change of pace and diversity to an album that could easily grow stale.

Just as you must embrace the good of what you enjoy, you must also admit the bad, and there is some unfortunate low tones on the Gods of Macho's full-length as well. The most obvious is the amazingly awkward one-two punch of "Midget Sex" and "The Cure". When listening to these tracks, I couldn't help but draw comparisons to Sevendust, or similar, less-than-desirable acts. Worse is that these two tracks are sandwiched in the middle of the album throwing off the entire flow. While there is certainly diversity among the rest of the tracks, they all seem as if they came from the same general creative place. These two tracks seem to come so far out of left field and are so divergent from the rest of the album that it really muddles the overall feel of an otherwise fairly consistent record.

Overall, the Gods of Macho's self-titled full-length is a fun and generally enjoyable record. While the band's image may be slightly gimmicky, the songs are fun and well done enough that the album does garner repeat spins (which is a rarity with albums that are strictly comedic). While the band seems to have some identity issues in terms of their musical content, they manage to pull out more than a handful of incredibly fun and memorable tracks on this full-length. Definitely worth checking out for the fashion tips alone. Now, pardon me while I wax my mustache.